University of Wollongong PhD student Massimo Fiorentino sits at a desk in the bright and airy Sustainable Buildings Research Centre (SBRC) with two screens that give live data about power consumption.

From here he can oversee the power use of the SBRC and the university's exhibition solar house nearby.

"The SBRC is a great case study for us and for me in particular because it's a very advanced building," he says.

"It's not only a nice building to be in, the features that are unique allow us to unleash the potential of the building.

"The control system can optimise different energy sources the building can use."

The SBRC is a living laboratory of environmental building design best practice.

And for any building where producing more power than it uses is one of the main goals, there needs to be good monitoring of how it's performing.

It's just like monitoring an athlete at training - the building is hooked up to various systems that feed back live data on how the building is performing, how much energy is being used and how much is being produced.

"We monitor what both buildings are doing at any point in time," Massimo says.

"Our goal at the end of the day is to be net zero energy and generate more electricity than we use."

The beauty of demonstrating this style of monitoring is that it's a system Massimo says can be connected in any domestic house.

"This type of building has complex energy systems, but it has to be simple for the [household] user to understand how the building is operating so they can adjust their behaviour based on what they're seeing through the interface.

"These types of control systems are plug-and-play, so they can adjust to any type of installation in any type of building."